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The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-20627, in the name of Ash Regan, on the Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. I invite members who wish to participate in the debate to press their request-to-speak button now or as soon as possible.
15:49
The world is watching. As the Jeffrey Epstein scandal finally unravels, it exposes something that survivors and whistleblowers have been telling us for decades: that sexual exploitation does not persist because no one knows about it; it persists because those with power choose not to act.
We must honestly ask ourselves today what Scotland can truly say that we have done. Have we listened to survivors, many of whom are in the gallery with us today? I am sad to say that, shamefully, very few in the chamber have listened to survivors. Too often, survivor voices have been drowned out by louder ones with platforms, enviable access to power and the presumption to speak over those who have lived experience. Politicians might write bold strategies on prostitution, but they repeatedly fail to confront the root cause of sexual exploitation, which is, of course, the demand to buy sex.
In the gallery today, and watching from home, are survivors who have tried time and again to be heard. They have submitted evidence, spoken to committees and attended parliamentary events, reliving their trauma not for themselves but to protect the next wee girl from what happened to them. Today, they have entrusted me with something profound: to be their agency, to speak truth to power and to ask this Parliament finally to act.
I will be absolutely clear about what the bill does. My unbuyable bill recognises prostitution for what it is—a system of exploitation and violence that is sustained by demand. It would decriminalise those who are sold, recognising them as people who are constrained by vulnerability and not as offenders, and it would place criminality and accountability where they have never properly sat in Scots law: with those who buy sexual access and those who profit from the sale of sexual access to human beings.
That is not radical. It would close a gap in the law that has existed for almost 20 years. Police Scotland is clear and is fully supportive of the idea that buying sex is a form of exploitation that should be covered by law. The majority of those who sell sex are vulnerable and most are at risk of violence and therefore should be supported, not criminalised. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service tells us that, although such offending often happens behind closed doors, that
“does not mean … that the difficulties are insurmountable”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 5 November 2025; c 2.]
The Lord Advocate is unequivocal and has said that
“those who purchase sex … are statistically more likely to perpetrate domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women and girls”,
making this a matter of clear
“public interest and societal harm.”
The UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls has stated plainly that prostitution
“constitutes torture, inhuman and degrading treatment”
and is an aggravated form of male violence, facilitated by demand.
This bill is not out of time; it is overdue. Why do this now? Because exploitation is not going to wait for more reviews, more consultations or more Government strategies. The electorate did not send us to the chamber to observe the harms that are going on outside; they sent us here to act and to do something about that. Public support for the bill is strong, yet Scotland remains in the extraordinary position where protecting women and children from sexual exploitation was not a fully funded, year 1 priority for the Government, which, after 19 years in power, has still failed to act.
The Government’s own expert adviser on grooming and child sexual exploitation, Professor Alexis Jay, said in 2018:
“The big issue here is tackling the problem of demand.”
The demand for sex with children is growing worldwide. Most women who are in prostitution entered as children, many of them from the care system and many already carrying the scars of sexual abuse, domestic violence and trauma. Surely the public expect us and the Government to do everything in our power to protect those vulnerable women and children, so why will we not do that?
The UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner has warned of a surge in trafficking, calling it a demand-led crime that grows faster than our ability to protect victims. This is a market where buyers believe that they are never going to be challenged, and that belief is our collective problem to solve in this place today. For nearly 20 years, inaction has allowed that belief that buyers have to harden.
I am sorry to say that, although the Parliament speaks eloquently and at length about equality, it is searching for reasons not to act where action is required. Inaction is not neutrality; it is a decision, and it has a cost. Dismissal of international evidence as being contested is not caution; it is intellectual laziness. The data exists if we choose to engage with it.
Sweden pioneered the equality model in 1999, criminalising the purchase of sex while supporting exit and recovery, and men consistently report a fear of legal consequences as being the primary deterrent. No Nordic model country has ever reversed its position. Instead, those countries have strengthened their laws, expanded their support and refined their enforcement. Once a society decides that human beings are not commodities, it does not go back from that position. That is what the global sex trade fears: losing its market of misery for profits.
The United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, is clear that prostitution is incompatible with women’s equality. Legal frameworks that normalise the buying of sex entrench violence and discrimination. Her message is that we have a duty to address demand, rather than to manage exploitation.
Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Ireland, France and Canada are all demonstrating positive outcomes of their laws. They have reduced demand, fewer people are in prostitution, they have improved safety and they have world-leading sexual health outcomes. In Sweden, there have been zero femicides in prostitution in 26 years. Sweden has the lowest demand for paid sex, it has world-leading HIV eradication, and it has strengthened laws to tackle online exploitation. That is not ideology—it is the evidence.
Let us remember Scotland’s legislative history.
[Made a request to intervene.]
I will come to the member in a moment.
Since 2002, there have been nine bills or formal proposals on prostitution. There have been a dozen consultations, multiple expert groups and, in this instance, a full stage 1 scrutiny of a bill. If the answer is another commission, Parliament deserves to know the answer to this question: what is a commission going to tell us that two decades of evidence have not already shown us?
Deputy Presiding Officer, I will take the intervention, but only if I am going to be given the time back.
You are already over your time, Ms Regan—
Okay. I apologise, but—
You are going to have to bring your remarks to a conclusion.
—I would like to put on the record that I have repeatedly asked for more time for this debate. When I have taken bills through Parliament before, I have always wanted to take interventions, because that is an important part of steering legislation through. I am sorry, but not to be able to take interventions is a failure of the Parliament—
Ms Regan, if you could resume your seat for a second.
—and its duty to have a proper debate on this.
Ms Regan, if you could resume your seat for a second. [Interruption.] No, I am asking you to resume your seat. Could you please resume your seat? I will allow you back in in a second. What I am saying to you is that the intervention came after the conclusion of your speaking time allowance, so it is not as if you were not able to take it because you did not have enough time. You were allocated eight minutes. I have given you additional time. If you could please bring your remarks to a conclusion, I would be grateful.
I want to make a point to the chamber about the timing, because that is an issue that the Government has raised. We never seem to know our own history in here, so I note that the Prostitution (Public Places) (Scotland) Bill, which was passed in 2007, moved from introduction to enactment within a matter of months, and that was in an election year. Stage 1 was in January and stage 3 was in February. There was seemingly no panic about that bill, even though it was more complicated than this one.
We have to ask whose interests are being threatened. It is not the little girls in care homes who are vulnerable to grooming, not the women who, as we speak, are being trafficked in vans across Europe towards Scotland, not the students who are being lured in by free accommodation, not the abused, not the addicted and not the desperate women who are being coerced by debts and threats. That is the reality of prostitution.
Please bring your remarks to a conclusion.
Survivors have told us repeatedly that the loudest voices in the debate are from those who were never for sale. That is a scandal. One person told us that every delay tells men that they can keep doing what they are doing, and tells women that their lives do not matter.
Bring your remarks to a conclusion, please, Ms Regan.
Presiding Officer, I will. Unfortunately—again—the Parliament does not allocate enough time to the things that are desperately important, such as saving people’s lives. The equally safe strategy recognises prostitution as violence against women and girls, yet ministers are asking the Parliament to vote against legislation that enacts that principle. Survivors will notice that contradiction, as will voters. After nearly two decades in power, delay is not caution but abdication. The world is watching. The Parliament must agree—and does agree, I think—that prostitution is violence against women. If members agree with that, I ask them please to vote for the principles of the bill. It will be a vote to hold to account the perpetrators of violence.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill.
I call Audrey Nicoll to speak on behalf of the Criminal Justice Committee, for up to seven minutes.
16:01
I am very pleased to open on behalf of the Criminal Justice Committee. At the outset, I advise members that I have limited time to set out some of the key details from our stage 1 report; I will therefore take interventions at the end, if there is time.
First, I thank our excellent clerking team for the support that we have come to expect over the years, and the Scottish Parliament information centre and participation and communities team colleagues who supported us through the complexities of trauma-informed engagement with witnesses with lived and living experience. Although I have a deep personal interest in tackling gender-based abuse in Scotland, I speak today as convener of, and on behalf of, the whole committee.
The committee approached our scrutiny in a constructive and collegiate manner, and there were many areas of common agreement. The committee is grateful to all who gave evidence, particularly those with lived and living experience. We appreciate the bravery and honesty with which they shared their experiences and insight.
In addition to our oral evidence sessions, the committee received a substantial volume of written evidence, which set out strongly held views across both sides of the debate. Our aim has been, within the time available, to allow individuals on both sides of the debate to set out their positions.
In considering the evidence, it cannot be overstated that our overriding collective objective is to reduce the harm that is associated with prostitution. The committee took a great deal of time to agree and prepare our conclusions and recommendations, and I will highlight the main findings in our stage 1 report.
The most controversial proposal in the bill is a new offence to criminalise the purchase of a sexual act. The challenge that we faced in our scrutiny was to determine the likely impact of that proposed new offence and whether, as drafted, it could achieve its stated aims. In the time that was available to the committee, we considered the impact of the proposed offence on demand and on related activities such as human trafficking and, importantly, the implications for policing, the prosecution of offences and the safety of women.
Much of the evidence in that policy area is highly contested, which made reaching conclusions very difficult. However, after careful consideration of the evidence, the committee reached some unanimous conclusions: first, prostitution causes untold harm and misery for many of those who are involved; and secondly, we are fully supportive of the overall goal of the member in charge of the bill to reform the laws on prostitution in order to reduce the demand for and prevalence of prostitution in Scotland.
However, we identified concerns with the bill as it was drafted. A key concern is whether a new criminal offence could be enforced in such a way as to reduce the amount of prostitution in Scotland, as stated in the policy memorandum.
Police Scotland stated:
“We would need to find a model that allows us to be satisfied that the crime of the purchase of sex is complete.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 5 November 2025; c 9.]
The Crown Office stressed the importance of managing expectations with regard to the evidential difficulties in proving the offence.
It is an offence that would invariably take place in private, that might be arranged online, and that could involve highly vulnerable individuals who might be reluctant to give evidence to secure a conviction.
We also heard concerns about the definition of a sexual act, including that behaviours excluded from the definition could be confusing.
Will the member take an intervention?
If Mr Ewing will bear with me, I will take his intervention if I have time at the end.
Our overriding concern is the evidence that we heard about the impact of the proposed offence as drafted on the safety of women. Supporters of the bill told us that there is no reliable evidence that the model proposed would make women more unsafe; however, we heard concerns that criminalising the buyer might drive prostitution underground and make it less safe for those selling it.
Will the member take an intervention?
I will come back to Ms Maguire if I have time.
We consider that there is more to be done to properly engage with and address the genuine concerns expressed that the offence would compromise women’s safety.
On the other proposals in the bill, we believe that there is merit in the proposal to repeal the offence of soliciting. That was widely supported by witnesses, although the Scottish Government’s view is that it would require further consultation. On the proposal to quash convictions for soliciting, we understand the policy intention, but we heard evidence that an alternative approach, based on pardons, would be preferable.
We agree with the general policy intention in the bill that individuals who are or have been in prostitution should receive assistance and support. However, we have concerns about the adequacy of the funding levels that are proposed in the bill.
Ms Nicoll, if you could resume your seat. I call Michelle Thomson to make a point of order.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Given the level of interest in the debate, it is reasonable to assume that everybody in the chamber will have read the stage 1 report — and, with respect to the convener, this is a debate. I therefore do not think that there is any material benefit to taking interventions after all the main points have been made, and so I wonder whether she would reflect on whether she is willing to have a debate.
That is not a point of order.
Points of order should not be used to make interventions.
I thank Michelle Thomson for her intervention.
My position is that it is important that I set out the position of the committee. I am happy to take interventions at the end of my contribution. If I may therefore proceed.
Taking into account all the evidence that we received, some committee members were content to recommend that the bill should progress to stage 2. Others considered that there is insufficient time to undertake the necessary detailed consultation and engagement to properly address the issue of women’s safety and to make other necessary changes. Therefore, they do not consider that the bill should proceed beyond stage 1. However, we are all agreed that prostitution is a form of violence against women and girls, that its prevalence must be reduced and that further action is necessary as a matter of priority.
We were all of the view that, if passed at stage 1, significant amendments to the bill will be required to address the concerns that we have identified. If the bill is not to succeed, we set out some views on what should happen next, including the establishment of an independent commission. I note that the Scottish Government’s response to our stage 1 report sets out a commitment to a commission that would identify options for the next Government to consider.
If I have time, I will now take interventions.
You are over time now, Ms Nicoll.
I now call—
May I just conclude my remarks, Presiding Officer?
To conclude, I extend our thanks again to everyone who supported the committee’s scrutiny, and I look forward to hearing members’ contributions.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I rise as someone who also hopes to speak in the debate. I note that the first two speakers—the member in charge of the bill and the convener of the lead committee—have both questioned the time constraints that have been allocated to it. That will only continue as more members seek to make points and, I hope, take and make interventions in a debate.
Therefore, I request that the Presiding Officer considers a motion without notice to extend the debate to allow future speakers full time to have a debate, including the member in charge when she is summing up, because the Parliament is able to change the rules at a whim to allow much to be debated late into the evening, and surely this is something that should be debated late into this evening.
Thank you, Mr Ross. In response to your point of order, this is a matter that has been considered by the bureau at some length, including contributions from the member in charge and from all parties. On that basis, I am not minded to take a motion without notice. The next speaker is the minister, who has up to seven minutes.
16:10
I commend Ash Regan for the work that she has undertaken on the bill, which has brought prostitution to the top of the political agenda. Through the stage 1 process, Parliament has been able to hear directly from women who have lived experience of prostitution, which would not have happened were it not for the bill.
Will the minister take an intervention on that point?
Yes.
I have been very concerned—I would have made an intervention on the committee convener had she had time to take it—about the seeming lack of comparativeness between those who advance the argument that they do not agree with the bill and say that they have lived experience, and survivors with lived experience. Can the minister explain why she met lobby groups and people who said that they did not agree with the bill, but she refused to meet the survivors, who could have told her about the real reality of prostitution?
I am sorry, but I do not think that that is at all an accurate reflection from Ms Regan—absolutely not. [Interruption.]
As I have said throughout, the bill has reinforced the clear and unequivocal position that prostitution is violence against women and girls. [Interruption.] It is the Scottish Government’s view, as set out in our equally safe strategy, that men should not be able to purchase sex—quite simply, women are not for sale.
I thank the committee for its scrutiny, which has been thoughtful and considered. I am also grateful to all those who have provided evidence and those who have written to and met me. I recognise that sharing personal experiences can be hard, and I am grateful to them for doing so.
Will the minister take an intervention?
I will take an intervention, but in a moment. I want to make a little bit of progress first.
I also acknowledge the important role that the cross-party group on commercial sexual exploitation has played in ensuring that the social implications of commercial sexual exploitation, including trafficking and prostitution, have remained a matter of priority throughout this session of Parliament.
Members will be aware that, regretfully, the Scottish Government cannot support the bill at stage 1, due to the short time left in the session to address the significant issues. [Interruption.] I think that I need to be clear that the bill was introduced just eight months ago. If the member had introduced it in May 2024, we could maybe have worked together to get it in. [Interruption.]
Regretfully, the Scottish Government cannot support the bill. Although we strongly support the principle of criminalising those who purchase sex, the bill’s aim is to protect women, and legislating on principle alone is not sufficient to ensure that we deliver that aim. It is necessary to have a workable, effective bill that can command the confidence of Parliament. [Interruption.]
I will take an intervention from Carol Mochan.
I appreciate the minister taking an intervention. You say how important this is and that you think that it could be a bill that we could work with. Are there any amendments that would enable us to move forward with the bill?
Always speak through the chair, please.
I will come to that. I do not believe that we can move forward with it, as we have only six weeks left. One of the issues is support. [Interruption.] There is no detail on support in the bill, and we would like to consult, especially with women who are currently in prostitution, on what support they would like. We would not have time to do that in the next couple of weeks, let alone months.
Those who provided evidence to the committee, and indeed the committee itself, have pointed to concerns that some women who are involved in prostitution say that their safety would be at risk. Without the necessary time to consult and to develop proposals to ensure their safety, we cannot support the bill as drafted. [Interruption.]
The committee’s report clearly outlines the differing—
Will the minister take an intervention?
I will.
I appreciate the minister taking an intervention. The Government has provided a shadow bill team to assist with other legislation on which it is neutral. Given that the principle behind the bill is a long-standing Scottish National Party policy, why has it not done so in this case?
I am sorry, but we did not have the official support for a shadow bill team on this particular bill.
The committee’s report clearly outlines the differing perspectives on the bill and offers a clear route map that should, I agree, lead to informed and deliverable next steps. Those next steps need to reflect and respond to how commercial sexual exploitation is taking place now, in 2026, and how the challenges of online activity—
On online activity, will the minister give way?
Will the minister take an intervention?
—which did not exist when the Nordic model was first introduced, can be addressed.
Will the minister give way on that point?
I ask members if I can please make a bit of progress—[Interruption.]
I will take interventions, but there are people screaming from the back, and I think that we should show a little bit of respect.
Members: Oh!
I will take an intervention from Ruth Maguire.
I appreciate the minister giving way. With regard to tackling online prostitution, the Scottish Government, in response to the cross-party group on commercial sexual exploitation’s 2021 report, “Online Pimping: An Inquiry into Sexual Exploitation Advertising Websites”, was quick to point out that it did not have the levers to address online matters. It is therefore a little bit concerning that the Government is using that as a reason not to legislate on the matter.
One of the issues is that it is a reserved matter. However, as I think that Police Scotland told the committee in its evidence sessions, online activity is a huge issue in prostitution these days, and it needs to be able to enforce any legislation that goes through. Even though it is a reserved matter, therefore, we need to put it all in context as we move forward.
The next steps that we take need to reflect and respond to how commercial sexual exploitation is taking place now, in 2026, and to ensure that the challenges of online activity, which did not exist when the Nordic model was first introduced, can be addressed. That is why the Scottish Government welcomes and supports the committee’s recommendation that an independent commission be established to consider those issues, with a clear remit and timescale for reporting.
I will outline three steps that the Government will take on the committee’s recommendations. First, I have instructed officials to start work immediately on the establishment of a commission so that options are available for the responsible minister in the next Government. Those will be ready on their first day so that the next Government—as this Government will do if it is returned—can establish a commission at pace.
Will the minister take an intervention?
Secondly, if this Government is returned, we will ensure that such a commission is time limited so that legislation can be put before MSPs as early as possible, informed by the commission and by public consultation. I can commit today that my party will introduce such legislation.
Will the minister take an intervention?
Thirdly, the committee asked the Government to provide support for relevant support services. The draft budget includes £400,000 to further support implementation of our strategic approach to challenging demand for prostitution. We will also provide an additional £65,000 in the next financial year to the Women’s Support Project, improving access to services and supporting women exiting prostitution.
I now turn to the detail of the bill—
Will the minister give way?
Sorry, Presiding Officer—I have no time left.
Before I finish, I want to mention Police Scotland’s national—
Will the minister give way?
I am sorry—I do not have any time for interventions.
The minister cannot give way.
I conclude by saying, again, that I regret that we cannot support the bill as drafted, given that there is not sufficient time to develop the proposals and amendments that would be needed to address the very significant concerns that we have with it.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. We have now heard the member in charge of the bill, the convener of the lead committee and the Government minister who is responding to the debate all claiming that they do not have enough time not only to take interventions—although the minister did—but to finish their remarks. What does it take to get you to agree to a motion without notice to extend the debate?
Mr Ross, that is the same point of order that you raised before. I explained to you why I am not prepared to accept a motion without notice. The matter has been considered extensively by the Parliamentary Bureau over multiple sessions, and with the member in charge of the bill, and Parliament has set a timing motion, to which I am going to adhere.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Given what you have just said to the chamber about the many meetings of the bureau, here we are now, in the stage 1 debate, and we can see how things are going; many members had anticipated that it might be like this.
Is there a possibility—if things are not so inflexible in our Parliament—that the bureau could meet, as it has done on many occasions, at the back door of the chamber or in a committee room, and decide to give the flexibility that is clearly now needed, as Douglas Ross and other members have made clear, to properly consider the principles of the bill?
Mr Kerr, that is a point of order that you may wish to raise with your business manager; it is not something on which I will opine at this stage. [Interruption.]
I am keen to protect the time that we have available. A number of members wish to participate in addition to those who had a right to speak in the debate. I am doing my best to ensure that they are able to so at the end of the debate, but that will require members to stick to their speaking time allocations.
I call Liam Kerr. You have up to five minutes.
16:20
At stage 1 of a bill, the Parliament debates the general principles of that bill, not whether it should become law. The bill before us seeks to reduce the amount of prostitution in Scotland because of the evidence of exploitation and the harms that it is causing. It does that principally by creating a new criminal offence of paying for sexual acts.
The minister accepts the fundamental principle of criminalising the purchase of sex, because, as she has said,
“prostitution is violence against women and girls.”
On that, we agree.
The bill also proposes to repeal the offence of soliciting, to quash convictions for certain offences and to provide a right to assistance and support.
The minister says that the bill before us would require a great deal of work in order to achieve its goals. On that, I agree, too. For example, I have concerns about the definition of the offence of paying for the performance of a sexual act by a person. I have concerns about the quashing provisions, which may not be within competence and could offend the separation of powers. I am also concerned that Police Scotland has warned that the cost of the bill could be at least £320 million. In addition, I have significant concerns about the effect that the proposed offence might have on the safety of women who are involved in prostitution.
[Made a request to intervene.]
May I come back to the member? I am sorry, but I really want to get to the next part of my speech first.
This is where I diverge completely from what the minister has just said. Surely, as Ash Regan passionately reminded us, if we have an opportunity to reduce violence against women and girls, we must explore it. That means progressing the bill to stage 2.
The minister says that there is insufficient time left to make the bill work. My observation is that, when the Government wants to do something, it finds the time to do it. When it wanted to release criminals early from prisons, it found time and avoided consultation by forcing through emergency legislation. When the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill initially contained the utterly appalling suggestion of removing trial by jury, the Government pushed it to stage 2, removed the entire part and then lodged nearly 300 stage 2 amendments, which were considered over four committee sittings.
Similarly, the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill had 550 stage 2 amendments, which were considered in five committee sittings over four weeks.
Will the member take an intervention?
Not just now. The Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill had 350 stage 2 amendments, which were considered in four committee sittings. The Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill had 650 amendments, which were considered in two sittings.
There are seven and a half weeks left until dissolution. Perhaps there is a concern about the time for stage 3 amendments and debate. However, I recall being required to sit until 10.30 at night and restarting at 8 o’clock the following morning on the Government’s performative and pejorative continuity bills. Just last week, we were here until 10 o’clock at night and then 10.30 the following night to debate 200 amendments in order to pass the Government’s Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill. That suggests to me that the time is there, unless the Government does not want it to be.
There is one more key thing that concerns me. What became the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 omitted sex as a protected characteristic in its new offences. Many MSPs tried to include it but, instead, the Government promised us a misogyny bill. It abandoned its promise last summer, citing a lack of time. Instead, the Government says that sex will now be added as a protected characteristic—from April 2027.
The minister said that there is not time for proper engagement and consultation. Just a fortnight ago, I stood in this very spot and heard a similar excuse for not bringing in a statutory offence of non-fatal strangulation, which is an act of violence that is disproportionately done by men to women. However, I have since discovered that the consultation will not finish until well into the next session of Parliament, despite the fact that the first clear mention of a statutory offence of non-fatal strangulation in this chamber that I can find was in December 2024.
As we have heard this afternoon, the consultation on letting criminals out after only 30 per cent of their sentence needed one week, but hey—at least we made time last week to pass stage 1 of the Greyhound Racing (Offences) (Scotland) Bill and send it to stage 2, even though there is no greyhound racing in Scotland.
Ash Regan’s bill has as its aim the reduction of violence against women and girls. It is flawed, but it just might—with amendments and determination—achieve that protection and reduce the violence. If it might do that, we have a duty—an obligation—to try. The Government says that there is not time. I say that it must make the time. That is why I shall vote for the bill to proceed at decision time.
16:25
Let us be clear that prostitution is a form of violence against women and girls and that it can never be made safe. That is the Scottish Government’s position. It is a mystery to me why the Government did not then put a promise to deal with the issue in its programme for government. Such an effort would have had the resources of Government behind it, and we would not be talking right now about why we are running out of time to legislate on the issue.
Prostitution is a dangerous occupation, and in no other profession are women at such a risk of harm. We live in a world where men are dominant and more physically powerful, and the main perpetrators of violence against women and girls are men. Those facts were supported by the brave individuals who attended the Criminal Justice Committee to share their lived experience of assault, intimidation, rape and other forms of violence. Violence was described by many of them as normalised and frequently underreported. Its cumulative effect was long-term trauma, hypervigilance and symptoms consistent with complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Prostitution is simply not a job like any other.
The desire for prostitution to be reduced and women to be given real choices was shared by most of the witnesses we heard from. I thank all the women who gave us their views, whether for or against the bill—I respect every one of them. However, I want to be crystal clear that Scottish Labour does not support the decriminalisation model as implemented in New Zealand, where prostitution has been described as harmless fun for men and even empowering for women. We heard from a 19-year-old survivor who said that she was raped after consenting to oral sex. She described being powerless to set boundaries with men who simply take what they want.
The bill is based on the Nordic model, which criminalises the sex buyer while decriminalising the seller. The bill is fundamentally about recognising that prostitution is a guaranteed way to harm women and get away with it. It is also about women exiting prostitution and saying to them that it is okay to leave and that those who do will be supported.
There is strong evidence that countries that have implemented a form of the Nordic model also see a reduction in sex trafficking, which is a serious crime. Obviously, that is a distinct issue, but such a reduction alone would justify members supporting the general principles of the bill.
One thing is certain: we cannot continue with the current system, which criminalises vulnerable women but does not criminalise men. It looks as though we will get to the end of this parliamentary session and still not criminalise men, but still criminalise women.
People think that it is perfectly valid to buy women’s bodies. Survivors have been brave enough to speak of the horrible things that they have experienced, such as being asked to wear their daughter’s clothes or being gang-raped by friends. Those are just some of the examples that speak to the wider societal harm of allowing, as a concept, men to buy sex. If members saw the news last night, they will have seen that men are filming women on nights out, sharing that as online content and making a fortune out of it. We have to understand the wider harms of being able to sell sex. It is visible to everyone.
This Parliament, like every other Parliament across the world that claims that it will challenge the trajectory of male violence, must find a route to deal with the uneven power dynamic within prostitution, where it is overwhelmingly women who are exploited and men who are causing harm. To those who say that sex work is a choice, I say that it is not a true choice for most of the women in prostitution, who are driven into it through poverty and other traumatic circumstances.
We heard some evidence that decriminalising the sale of sex would allow for sex buyers to be screened, but others say that it is exceptionally difficult for women to refuse buyers. One former sex worker said that her most violent experience happened in a brothel. She was choked and hurt by a man, and when she begged him to stop, he did not. She recounted that there were panic buttons installed in the rooms, a buzzer entry system to the premises, a sign-in system where punters used fake names, cameras outside and other girls who promised to help if something went wrong.
She said that, when it came down to it, none of those security measures made any difference. In the end, she said that you are shut in a room with a man who has purchased your body and is almost always going to be significantly stronger than you. She said that, in her experience, men thrive on anonymity.
Dr Emma Forbes from the Crown Office said that men who are involved in buying sex
“are more likely to be perpetrators of domestic abuse and involved in other forms of violence against women and girls more broadly in our society through their treatment of other women.”
Does the member acknowledge that brothel keeping is not part of the bill?
Yes, because brothel keeping is already an offence when it has not gone underground.
In a similar vein, Detective Superintendent Bertram said that, when dealing with men who buy sex, Police Scotland has found that most have
really bad criminal histories involving violence against women, both within and outwith domestic settings, including a lot of serious offending through sexual crime.—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 5 November 2025; c 20, 21.]
I personally believe that a society that allows men to pay for sex in effect encourages men to view women as commodities, and I do not think that that can be isolated from ingrained misogyny in society. I believe that, ultimately, prostitution feeds men’s entitlement—that is what many survivors say—and, generally, women’s lack of self-worth. On a societal level, allowing men to pay for sex works to maintain male dominance and female subordination.
As I said, I believe that the bill should have been a Government one, and the reasons why it is not are not clear. All committee members were completely dissatisfied with the time allowed to scrutinise the bill—on that point, we were as one. Today, we are dealing with the general principles. We are not dealing with a bill that is perfect, but we are being asked to support or not support the general principles.
Scottish Labour is clear that there would have to be further consideration of some of the bigger issues and some amendments to the bill, but today we will support its general principles at decision time.
16:31
The Scottish Greens support workers—retail workers, hospitality workers, healthcare workers, care workers and, yes, sex workers, because sex work is work. It might not be work that one agrees with. It might not be work that one would ever do. One might never procure the services of a sex worker, but some people do that work. Many of them do it of their own free will. They find it meaningful and fulfilling work. It earns them a good living and puts food on their table.
I accept that that is not the case for all. For those who turn to sex work out of sheer desperation, clear supports should be in place to allow them to get out of that work and into a job that they actually want to do. We cannot and must not ignore the systemic barriers that drive some people into sex work that they would prefer not to do: poverty, disability, caring responsibilities and a lack of viable alternatives. However, we also cannot legislate those issues away by punishing clients and, by extension, workers. Those who coerce or traffic sex workers should feel the full force of the law. However, when it comes to those who do that work, do it freely and get value from it, who are we to make it harder and less safe? We should never make policy without listening to those whom it impacts, and the vast majority of workers are against criminalising the purchase of sex.
If prostitution is work like any other work, should we be offering it as work experience for young people? Should folk who are jobseekers have their benefits taken away if they refuse to do it?
It is a different kind of work. Lots of types of work are not offered for work experience, to use the example that the member gives.
One of the important points about the bill is that many sex workers believe that it would make them less safe. Indeed, as one sex worker told the committee:
“I currently fully vet all of my clients with legal ID and bank transfer deposits, the proposed bill will mean this will be unfeasible. I am safe as I know who I am encountering, but criminalising clients mean only those who are willing to break the law will seek out services, and therefore be less compliant with my current safety measures.”
Will the member take an intervention on that point?
Amnesty International has documented the impact of end-demand legislation on the human rights of sex workers in Norway, Ireland and France, and found that it compromises sex worker safety by involving them in criminalisation as police look for clients, or it criminalises third parties such as landlords.
Evidence from other countries shows that making sex work less visible does not eliminate demand.
That is not true.
It merely pushes sex workers further underground, increasing their vulnerability to violence and abuse. Workers are forced into more precarious interactions in less safe locations, and with less ability to demand safer working conditions or agree on boundaries. That is not protection—that is punishment. That is even more likely with the bill, because it does not decriminalise brothel keeping, which is defined as situations where more than one sex worker works in the same place. Not permitting sex workers to legally work together indoors has the effect of making sex workers more isolated and more vulnerable to potential violence—in other words, it puts them more at risk of harm.
Sex workers will be more unsafe, not only from violent clients but from stigma and its associated harms. The stigma that is associated with prostitution prevents sex workers from getting appropriate healthcare, and criminalisation will stigmatise workers as well as clients. Evidence from around the world has shown a clear link between criminalisation and sex workers’ increased risk of HIV, sexually transmitted infections and poor emotional health.
No, it has not.
That is why experts who have experienced the Nordic model support decriminalisation.
London School of Economics researchers conducted 210 formal interviews with sex workers, police, social workers and policy makers in Sweden, Norway and Finland. Of those, 96 per cent opposed the sex-buyer laws in those countries. The research found that, even if sex workers are not directly criminalised, they are de facto penalised through the enforcement of intersecting immigration, third-party and fiscal policies. It found that policing still targets sex workers and that the ramifications include evictions and deportations.
I want to address the issue of the trafficking of people for sex work. Trafficking people to force them into sex work is reprehensible, but we do not need new law to tackle that, because it already exists. The English Collective of Prostitutes has said:
“We have to look at the effectiveness of the law in that regard and the effectiveness of the support for victims of trafficking, but that is completely unconnected to the question of criminalising clients.”
The Criminal Justice Committee heard that there is no evidence from Sweden or other countries that laws that criminalise the purchase of sex have an impact on trafficking.
No, that is not true.
We can and should crack down on traffickers, but we can do that without harassing people who are just trying to earn a living.
There is another way, as sex workers have said. Full decriminalisation of sex work—of purchase and of running locations where sex work happens—can create the space for collective safety. It allows sex workers to work together, unionise, support one another and access healthcare, housing and social security, and to work in safe spaces without the looming threat of being dragged into criminal justice processes.
Scotland for Decrim argues that only by fully removing punitive laws do sex workers gain
“the power to choose when and how we work”,
which is the power and the dignity of their labour that all workers should have.
Sex workers simply ask for that same treatment. As a Scottish Green, I believe deeply in harm reduction, social justice and bodily autonomy. Where sex work happens between consenting adults, I believe that the state should support them, not penalise them for how they choose to live and work.
You need to conclude.
We must trust sex workers with their own lives, listen to them and follow their demands. We stand for sex workers’ rights in Scotland—for safety, dignity and freedom.
Before I call the next speaker, could I please discourage members from shouting out from a sedentary position? I understand the frustration if an intervention is not accepted by the speaker, but it is up to the person with the microphone to decide whether to take the intervention.
16:39
Before I begin my remarks, I pay tribute to the member in charge of the bill. Although my party’s position, which is a long-established policy, is at odds with hers, I recognise her tenacity, passion and commitment in relation to her work on the bill.
The bill proposes a number of changes to the current legal framework relating to sex work. In particular, it would introduce a new criminal offence, repeal the existing offence of soliciting for the purposes of prostitution in a public place, overturn convictions under that offence and place a statutory duty on ministers to provide support to people who currently work or have previously worked in prostitution. That support could include accommodation, financial and material assistance, counselling services and healthcare provision. I state at the outset that my party whole-heartedly agrees that access to appropriate support services is vital and that no one should be prevented from seeking help because of stigma and fear.
If that is the case and if section 6, which is on the right to support, is supported by the Liberal Democrats—this is not my view, but a possible outcome is that part of the bill being the only part left—surely, logically, the Lib Dems should support the bill in order to allow that right to support to be passed by the Parliament and to do something good for the most abused women in the land.
There are aspects of the bill that we absolutely support, but I will come on to the reasons why we cannot support it in its entirety.
Our position on the issue has been established for some time. We believe in decriminalising sex work in line with international best practice. We do not support the adoption of the model that is proposed in the bill. Our position is informed by the available evidence and by the experience of other jurisdictions.
Although the intention is that the bill will reduce harm, the criminalising of the purchase of sex has not consistently achieved that outcome in practice. Evidence from countries that have taken that approach indicates that it can result in increased marginalisation of sex workers, reduced visibility of activity and additional barriers to accessing support services.
The problem that we are wrestling with is that it is our job as legislators to engage with the data and the evidence. It is fine for people to have opinions. People can say, “I think this might be more safe,” but that is not supported by the evidence. We analysed the evidence from the other side of the debate that was submitted to the committee—because the committee was unwilling to do so—and that evidence shows that the Nordic model is the only model that reduces harm.
I recognise the work that the member in charge of the bill has done, but we have also done work in preparation for today’s debate, and the experience of jurisdictions such as Australia suggests that what the member has said is not the case.
We cannot wish away prostitution. Given that it will forever exist, we must ensure that it happens in the safest possible way. That is why my party embraces the idea of decriminalisation and the evidence from jurisdictions that have gone before us.
Evidence from countries that have taken the approach of criminalisation indicates that it can result in increased marginalisation, as I said. The evidence also suggests that, when buyers are criminalised, sex workers might have less opportunity to assess risk, might be pushed towards more isolated locations and might be less likely to report concerns to the police. Those factors are relevant when assessing whether the approach that is proposed in the bill will deliver its stated objectives.
In contrast, in places where sex work has been decriminalised, the evidence points to improved engagement between sex workers and public authorities, increased reporting of violence and abuse, greater access to health and support services and improved working conditions. Decriminalisation has also been associated with a clearer distinction between consensual sex work and exploitation. It frees up police time to focus on harm, and it allows enforcement efforts to focus more directly on coercion, trafficking and abuse.
We recognise the inclusion in the bill of a duty on ministers to provide support. However, we are not persuaded that introducing a new criminal offence alongside that duty would represent the most effective or coherent policy framework. In our view, support services are more effective when they are delivered independently of criminalisation and when individuals can engage with services without fear of wider legal consequences.
For the Scottish Liberal Democrats, the central test of any legislation in this area—and this speaks to Fergus Ewing’s intervention—is whether it demonstrably reduces harm, improves safety and enables access to support. On the basis of the available empirical evidence, we do not believe that the bill meets that test.
This is a complex policy area, and it is appropriate that Parliament debates it and considers a range of perspectives as a bill like this progresses. We will engage with the process in good faith if the bill passes tonight. However, for the reasons that I have set out, the Scottish Liberal Democrats cannot support the bill as it is.
We now move to the open debate, and I call Jamie Hepburn to be followed by Sharon Dowey. You have up to six minutes, Mr Hepburn.
16:45
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this stage 1 debate and to set out my perspective on the bill, which is informed by my experience as a member of the Criminal Justice Committee, which took evidence on it.
I recognise the work that Ash Regan has done to advance the bill. Having been responsible for taking forward various pieces of legislation as a Government minister, I know how onerous a task that can be. I do not therefore underestimate the challenges involved in advancing a member’s bill. I am grateful to my colleagues on the committee for the collaborative and collegiate fashion in which we worked together to pull together a stage 1 report, which is as comprehensive a report as we could have pulled together in the time that was available to us. Indeed, Ash Regan welcomed the approach that we had taken when she was before the committee on 26 November.
I want to pick up on the matter of time, as it has been instrumental to where I have ended up on the bill. I do not believe that the committee has had the requisite time to consider the matters at hand in the bill. As Pauline McNeill set out, that is a shared perspective of all members of the committee, as is set out in paragraph 406 of our report. I believe that we would have benefited from more time to look at the bill in greater detail. With the bill being introduced just a month before the deadline for members’ bills, we were left without the time to consider it as fully as I would have liked. That is not a criticism of the member in charge, as I recognise that she was unable to draw down support from the non-Government bills unit due to its lack of capacity. However, that has also informed my experience of considering the bill. We need to consider Parliament’s capacity to support its members to take forward and refine legislation. We are, after all, a legislature.
During the stage 1 scrutiny, the committee sought comparative evidence from various other authorities and jurisdictions, such as the Republic of Ireland, Sweden, Northern Ireland and so on, and responses were received. The report says that correspondence was received, but, beyond noting its existence, it does not summarise, analyse, quote from or otherwise engage with the content. There was a period of two months between the final evidence being received and the publication of the stage 1 report, on 23 January. What was going on in those two months, which could have been used to address some of those things?
What was going on was consideration of the wide-ranging evidence that was provided to us, including the evidence that has been cited. All of that evidence is available for any member of this Parliament and the public to draw on. It has all been published and is publicly available. One of the challenges that we faced with some of the international evidence was the fact that there were competing points of view on that evidence. I will come to that again if I have time.
The stated purpose of the bill, as it is set out in the policy memorandum, is to reduce the amount of prostitution in Scotland, because of the evidence of exploitation and the harm that it is causing. I think that we all instinctively support ensuring the safety of women, who make up the overwhelming number of those who sell sex in Scotland. That is what we should strive for. It should be our collective aim, and it has been the starting point from which I have approached consideration of the bill.
I was taken with the point that was made in one of our evidence sessions by a witness who supports the bill and who said of prostitution:
“The Nordic model does not proclaim that it will make it safe. In my personal experience, it can never be made safe.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 8 October 2025; c 5.]
The question that I was grappling with was whether the terms of the bill would make it more or less safe for those women and girls who are involved in the sale of sex.
In considering that, the committee has been confronted with different points of view. That which I considered to be the most important came from the women who had lived experience and who took their time to engage with the evidence-gathering process. I am grateful to them for doing so; it would not have been an easy thing for them to do. There is, at the very least, a perception among some of those who remain involved in the sale of sex that the provisions in the bill would make it less safe for them, and they have said so publicly. They have stated that on the record.
Will the member give way?
I am afraid that I will not be giving way to Ms Maguire.
The arguments as to why they fear that to be the case have been well aired, and I will not rehearse all those arguments. They are all on the public record. Those concerns require to be taken seriously and not dismissed lightly, but, in the limited amount of time that we have had, I do not feel that we have been able to scrutinise this area adequately. I cannot earnestly say that I have been able to satisfy myself beyond any reasonable doubt that the bill would not make women who are selling sex less safe.
This is directly on that point. Would the member and the committee have been able to satisfy themselves on that point a little bit better if they had not engaged with the lived-experience panel that was against the bill but had engaged in person with the survivors who are for the bill?
The committee made efforts through an organisation—I cannot remember its name, and I am not going to guess what it was. There was an effort to seek to engage with that group of women, and we were informed that it was difficult for them to come forward. I see Ms Regan shaking her head, but that is what we were explicitly told. If the question is whether I would have liked to hear directly from those voices on the same basis, the answer is yes, I would. However, we were told that that was not possible.
In closing, I go back to the fundamental point that, if there had been more time for us to consider the bill, I might have been able to stand here and say that I was satisfied beyond doubt that the bill would not put women selling sex in jeopardy. However, we did not have the time to do that. I think that we need more time to consider the matter fully, and on that basis I cannot support the bill at this stage.
16:52
During the scrutiny of the bill, I and my colleagues on the Criminal Justice Committee heard of the trauma and devastation that involvement in prostitution can cause. This morning, Ash Regan shared with us the experiences of some survivors of prostitution. Those experiences struck me, and I believe that it is important that we listen to survivors. Venessa MacLeod recounted that she felt little more than
“an object, an item of purchased property that men felt entitled to use however they wanted.”
She wrote of her experience, which left her feeling so severely traumatised that she was
“stuck in a never-ending cycle of fear, flashbacks and panic.”
Eradicating prostitution is clearly not an easy task, but, as elected representatives, we are duty bound to try our best. We believe that much of the bill will support that cause, even if there is room for improving and tightening up some of the ideas within it.
I thank Ash Regan for bringing this important bill to the chamber. As we are nearing the end of this parliamentary session, I am concerned that we may not have enough time to work out the required amendments, but I am disappointed that the SNP Government is prepared to reject the bill without trying. Given that the SNP has brought bills to the chamber that have required hundreds of amendments, as Liam Kerr said earlier, SNP members could at least try if they wanted to.
It is absolutely right that the burden of criminality is taken away from vulnerable people at one end of the scale, many of whom are victims of serious crime, and moved on to the powerful, coercive and opportunistic users at the other end.
There is evidence from other countries that many of the measures proposed in the bill would have a positive impact, but there is also evidence that, if they are not implemented properly, the bill might not have the meaningful impact that it is designed to have.
As things stand, the incidence of crimes associated with prostitution is rising, and many victims of human trafficking and coercion are victims of sexual exploitation. We must ensure that, along with creating a new offence, our authorities have the power and the tools to enforce it. I am glad to see that Police Scotland is supportive of the bill, but the police must also fret about their capabilities when it comes to acting on any new laws, given the most recent estimate that more than £321 million would be required to enforce the bill. We now have another budget and, again, the police will not receive the uplift in funding that they need.
Our hard-working justice sector has been struggling for years under this SNP Government. Audit Scotland recently reported that
“there is no evidence that 16,500 police officers … are the right numbers to deliver an effective police service for the future.”
In statistics that were published just today, we see that, once again, the number of police officers in Scotland has dropped. Ten years ago, Scotland had 17,263 officers. The latest figures show that we now have only 16,416. Proper enforcement requires resources, so I urge the SNP Government to finally ensure that our police force is sufficiently resourced.
The vast majority of sex workers are pushed into the trade by a range of disastrous circumstances. Venessa MacLeod was sold into prostitution at the age of just 17 because she risked becoming homeless and a friend took advantage of her. Human trafficking and exploitation, poverty, lack of opportunity, substance abuse, family breakdown and a lack of decent housing are all contributing factors. As a result, it is welcome that Ash Regan has included in her bill a right to support for those who are in or exiting the industry.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, the bill is not perfect. Voices have raised serious concerns, and we must not dismiss them. However, addressing some questions and points that have been raised about the bill could help to strengthen it and further the positive impact that it could have on Scotland. Before we get there, I reaffirm that we support the principles in the bill. We appreciate the severity of the matter, we appreciate the survivors for sharing their experiences with us, and we agree with Ash Regan that solving these problems should be of the utmost importance.
16:56
I was disappointed in the Criminal Justice Committee’s stage 1 report—not because I simply disagreed with its conclusions but because the committee did not fulfil its fundamental role of scrutinising contested evidence. The Parliament relies on committees to distinguish robust evidence from ideology and self-interest and to discriminate between the quality and accuracy of submissions, yet the committee report gives them equal weight. As a result, no credible claim can be made that there is evidence that the bill would cause harm to women; there is only the opinion of a small number of self-interested bodies.
Rona Mackay rose—
Jamie Hepburn rose—
I will give way to Rona Mackay.
Thank you for giving way. I am not sure whether Michelle Thomson is aware of this, but the member in charge of the bill did not consult women who are currently working in the sex trade; she consulted people who had exited the trade. When I raised in committee the issue of the serious safety concerns that we had heard about, she said that they were a myth. Do you believe that those safety concerns are a myth?
Always speak through the chair.
I am in the process of making an argument specifically about why the committee report has to be tested. I will fold in all that, because I would say that, furthermore, there is clear evidence of bias in both the committee’s report and the Government’s response. For example, the report records that some committee members attended an informal meeting facilitated by Scotland for Decrim, which enabled members’ direct engagement with those participants. However, no equivalent access was afforded to the Women’s Support Project or A Model for Scotland.
Will Michelle Thomson take an intervention?
No, I will not. I have taken one already.
That is a textbook example of two types of bias: confirmation bias and motivational bias.
Will Michelle Thomson take an intervention?
I will finish this section first.
That is a deadly combination. When evidence is filtered through bias, the resulting recommendations cannot command the confidence of Parliament.
Will Michelle Thomson give way?
I will finish one more bit and then take an intervention.
Consequently, the Government’s six-page response to the committee report is less than compelling. It would surely have been more honest and more democratic to gather the true views of the Parliament by allowing a free vote, especially given that, ultimately, due to the coming election, the bill will fall regardless, and the Government claims that it will seek to introduce legislation as soon as possible if re-elected.
I will give way to the convener.
On Michelle Thomson’s point about the balance of evidence, I would point out—this has been reflected already in the debate—that we engaged, or attempted to engage, in a balanced way. On the point about evidence from the Women’s Support Project, I note that it was our aspiration for all engagement to be trauma informed and, on that particular issue, we were advised strongly not to engage directly with lived-experience witnesses.
I thank the convener for her point, but the point that I am making is that not doing that directly, regardless of whether that was the advice, gives different weight to the two different sides. I am making an academic point.
I want to make some progress. So that we are clear about the decision that we are making today, I will discuss some of the harms for women.
I accord respect to the women who are in the gallery today. The life that they live is thus. They are systematically raped, vaginally, anally and orally, multiple times a day. They are spat on, ejaculated on, urinated on and sometimes defecated on. They suffer repeated abrasions and injuries to their vagina and anus, often requiring medical treatment, are at a high risk of being slapped or punched and are 18 times more likely to be murdered. They are strangled, potentially until they are unconscious and often without even knowing that that is happening. They are verbally abused by the people who pay for access to their bodies and are at a high risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and other serious infections. They lose most of their earnings to the pimp who is controlling them and become addicted to mind-numbing substances simply to endure the disassociation and develop complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Even if they escape, they struggle for the rest of their life to form trusting relationships with men. On the upside, they will learn that their most valued skill is performing, because their rapists require them to act as though they enjoy what is being done to them.
On that basis, who here would argue that that should be regularised? Who here would argue for the protection of abusers rather than of the women themselves, and who here would tell a constituent who cannot afford to put food in her mouth that the solution is to put male members in her mouth? No one.
We have privilege. The reality of prostitution will never permeate our lives, but it permeates the lives of the poor, the dispossessed, the trafficked, the vulnerable, the addicted, the homeless—the ones with no voice: exactly the people we are meant to speak for here. Is the extent of our collective ambition to make Scotland a better place that we will simply accept the entitlement of some men to demand the purchase of women? We are here as change makers, not just as policymakers.
I wrote recently on X:
“It is my intention”—
as others, of course, would have guessed—
“to vote for this Bill at Stage 1 … my principled stance is that the sex class ‘women’ should not be legally bought as commodities and raped for money.”
That is the nub of today’s debate. We are wrestling with the principle of the commodification of women and the principle of male demand. Complexity cannot be an alibi for inaction. I agree that the situation is complex and that many states have wrestled with it, but if we are here that should be because we want Scotland to be better. I ask you all, particularly my colleagues, why are you here? We have the opportunity to choose courage over complacency. I know what I choose, Presiding Officer. Do you?
I remind members always to speak through the chair.
I call Rhoda Grant, who is joining us remotely.
17:03
I do not think that many here would agree that another human being should be a commodity to be bought and sold, and neither do I believe that anyone present would think that vulnerable people should be exploited.
However, I do believe that many in the chamber have not really thought through what prostitution is or what its impacts are. I ask them to consider whether, if their mother, sister or daughter was involved in prostitution, they would see that as an ordinary job. How would they regard the men who paid for access to that woman’s body and would they believe that that payment bought consent? I ask everyone to take a moment to think about that.
I also ask them to think about the men who buy sex, who are often missed out of the whole debate. Anyone who has seen the report of the “invisible men” project cannot help but be horrified.
It showed men reviewing women in prostitution on a kind of TripAdvisor for prostitution; men complaining about the lack of enjoyment displayed by their victims; men recognising that women whom they were abusing were being trafficked, but doing nothing about it; and men talking about their abuse, which involved forcing women to do things they clearly did not want to do, with no remorse. These men need to be held accountable for their abuse. They are ordinary men. Many of them are married or in long-term relationships, yet they buy sex to have control and to ask those women for things that other consenting adults would not do or gain any enjoyment from. It is completely selfish exploitation.
The bill seeks to stop that exploitation. Is it drafted perfectly? No. If it was, it would be the first bill in this Parliament to be so. No bill has been passed without amendment, although some have been worse than others. We are not here today to make a judgment on that; we are here to make a judgment on the general principles of a bill that seeks to stop the gendered exploitation of women.
This Parliament and the Scottish Government recognise that prostitution is violence against women, yet it feels as if many are looking for excuses not to address that violence. If we truly believe that prostitution is violence against women, the costs associated with the bill should not be a barrier. Nobody in our midst would say that combating domestic abuse is too expensive or that we should shut domestic abuse courts and women’s refuges and stop offering counselling. We know that prostitution is wrong and we need to combat it. Therefore, concerning ourselves with the cost of supporting people should be a reason for our shame, not a reason for our voting against the bill. The services that are needed to support people should be in place now. Regardless of whether the bill proceeds, they must be put in place. If we really believe that prostitution is violence against women, we need to support women in prostitution.
We should also all be in favour of stopping the exploited being criminalised. We recognise that prostitution is abuse, yet we sit back and allow our laws to criminalise the victims for their own abuse. In what way is that right? I do not believe that any of us would suggest that it is right.
There will be issues about quashing convictions, but there are ways around that. In the past, pardons have been offered for activities that were once criminalised but which we now see should never have been. We can ensure that disclosure checks do not list past convictions for soliciting, and there are myriad other ways in which this can be dealt with. Removing criminality from those in prostitution would ensure that never again will anyone in Scotland be criminalised for their own abuse. Surely we can all get behind that.
We then come to the nub of the issue, which is the buyers who feed the demand for exploitation—the small minority of men who believe that they are entitled to sex regardless of whether their chosen partner wants to have sex with them. That is rape, yet I fear that, today, we will allow these rapists to get off scot free. Is that really the country that we want to live in? Is that the country that members want to bring up their daughters and granddaughters in? I really do not think that any of us would put our hand on our heart and say, “Yes.”
If members agree with that, they must vote for the general principles of the bill. They must join the many others who will not accept this abuse. I ask members to join those who seek to protect future generations of women from men who would treat them as commodities, and together we can make the change. Let us start by voting for the bill at decision time tonight.
17:08
Rhoda Grant is absolutely right. I am standing here, at her invitation, thinking of my daughter and my granddaughters and the kind of country that I want them to grow up in. I do not see how it is a conundrum for any member of this Parliament to vote in favour of the general principles of the bill tonight.
I am grateful to Michelle Thomson for giving one of the most powerful speeches that I have heard in this Parliament. The reason why I say that is because she asked us to confront difficult, unspeakable truths, and she is asking this Parliament, as is Ash Regan, to confront realities that we have been prepared to look past for too long.
For generations, women have been at the sharp end of prostitution laws. Women have been prosecuted and stigmatised, and have carried criminal records. The men who used them, bought them and treated their bodies as commodities were often able to do so without any fear of criminal sanction. That imbalance matters not just legally but morally. The bill starts from the simple principle that women and girls should not be bought and sold. A society that tolerates that, however quietly, is a society that has failed to uphold its own values.
We cannot consider the bill in isolation from the wider reality of the global sex trade. Prostitution exists not in a vacuum but alongside trafficking, organised crime, coercion and exploitation. Women and girls are transported, displaced and controlled, in some cases in conditions that are nothing short of slavery—modern slavery, we might call it, but slavery nevertheless. That is not rhetoric but the evidence that is presented to the Parliament and its members.
The bill seeks to address the demand side of that equation. Demand fuels trafficking. If there is no demand, none of it exists. Demand sustains criminal gangs and creates a market in which exploitation thrives. If men face a real risk of prosecution for purchasing sexual access to another human being, the market changes, the incentives change and the profitability of abuse changes.
As has been mentioned by other speakers, that approach is not unique to Scotland. Other jurisdictions have attempted to challenge demand precisely because they recognise that, without doing so, exploitation will simply continue under different forms.
I am not pretending that the bill is perfect. It is not. However, neither do I accept the argument from the Government front bench that, somehow, there is no time left to amend the bill and make it workable. That is what the whole process of stage 2—and, later, stage 3—is about. The stage 1 question that we must all answer is whether we agree with the principle of eradicating, reducing and alleviating the terrible costs of prostitution in our country.
The bill is not perfect. Liam Kerr eloquently described legitimate questions. However, the timing of the stage 1 debate, so close to the end of a session, has become a convenient excuse for the Government not to support the bill. Those are reasons not to kill the bill tonight but to take it forward and amend it. We owe that to the women whose evidence was heard by the Criminal Justice Committee, many of whom described the violence, coercion and trauma that are the routine features of their lives, albeit not in terms as eloquent, powerful and terrible as what Michelle Thomson described to us.
We owe it to ourselves as legislators not to allow party politics, personality and point scoring to dictate how we vote tonight. That is not scrutiny or seriousness but small politics. I say, take the evidence, support the principle and advance the bill; then we will amend it.
17:13
I am grateful to the Presiding Officers for giving me space to make some remarks. I will start by quoting Diane Martin, chair of A Model for Scotland and a survivor of prostitution:
“If we do nothing, we become complicit because we know the realities and we’ve turned away. Inaction preserves a system that harms and criminalises victims, enables perpetrators to exploit with impunity, and maintains an organised-crime-driven market that has its eyes set on our children as either future commodities for sale or future sex buyers. Make no mistake: each vote cast will either be justice for vulnerable victims or continued abuse by a vile and violent trade in bodies.”
The bill will move forward or fall on the votes of SNP colleagues. I plead with them. I plead with those who recognise that injustice and who have perhaps spoken out previously, very eloquently, in the chamber but who intend to hold their noses and vote against the principle of something that they believe in—something that is SNP policy.
I want them to know that they are on solid ground on this matter and I ask them to vote with their conscience. The public, not the Government or whips, elect them to this place, and their public will value courage over unquestioning compliance.
Over at least the past 10 years, survivors, survivor-led organisations and front-line women’s workers have provided testimony and expertise to the Government in good faith, and to work that came to nothing. They contributed to Ash Regan’s consultation and to the committee’s consultation. They have given evidence publicly and reached out directly to their MSPs in writing and in person. They have spoken at events online, in Parliament and in their communities. Why on earth would we expect them to tell their stories, again, to a commission set up for some time in the future?
It is time that we got on with it for Diane Martin and for all the other female survivors who have generously and bravely shown us the reality of prostitution. It is time that we showed that we have listened to those brave women, that we understand, and that we care.
I say to colleagues: if this is something that you believe in, take a breath, and do the right thing at decision time tonight.
I call Fergus Ewing, who will have four minutes.
17:16
In the 26 years since the Parliament was reconvened, I have attended every debate that substantially—not entirely—involves a fundamental moral question.
In those previous debates, generally, the reputation of the Parliament has been enhanced. The debates have been largely courteous and they have been thorough — and, above all, they have had sufficient time to do justice to a most serious topic. Sadly, we are not seeing that today: not because of the Presiding Officer, but because of the decision of the Parliamentary Bureau. Let us be quite clear about that.
When we look back in history—as I am perhaps able to do, being rather older than most other members—we remember the poem by Edwin Morgan, who gave advice to MSPs. Do members remember his famous advice about what we do not want in Scotland? What we do not want, he wrote, is:
“a nest of fearties.”
What we do not want is:
“a symposium of procrastinators.”
That is a sort of legal phrase; maybe he was a lawyer as well as a poet.
The serious point, however, is this: we are not doing justice to ourselves today, and we are certainly not doing justice to the people of Scotland. However, far worse than that, we are allowing the continuance of the most vile and abhorrent abuse of women that is imaginable. It is happening as we speak, all over our country. I cannot match the eloquence of Pauline McNeill, Michelle Thomson and others, who have contributed to the debate and described those things graphically. They do not really bear too much repetition.
I do think that Stephen Kerr, Michelle Thomson and others have really destroyed the arguments for voting against the bill at stage 1. They have destroyed them. We have won the argument—it is clear.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am sorry, but I do not have much time to take interventions.
One of the points made by the convener of the committee was that it would be difficult to enforce. Well, rape is difficult to prove. Should we not have the crime of rape because it is difficult to prove? What a pathetic argument. Of course certain crimes are difficult to prove, and many more laws go unenforced. However, that is not a reason not to criminalise behaviour that is abhorrent to any right-thinking person in a democratic society. That is the purpose of public law and criminal law in a democracy—to ensure civilisation and protection of the weakest. That is the issue today, as we have heard. I was moved more than I can say by the testimonies of Venessa, Jenna, Chelsea and others who I listened to in the past two days.
I am very surprised that the police, yesterday, after 186 days, came forward with a totally wild estimate of the costs. I am bound to ask: were they invited so to do by anybody in the Government? Were any civil servants asking them to do so, saying, “It would be very helpful if you could give us this information”. I will use a carefully crafted phrase and say that it sounds to me improbably coincidental. [Interruption.]
Mr Ewing is concluding.
I have very little time, and I want to say a couple more things before I close.
Alone in the history of this institution, Ash Regan resigned on a point of principle. She gave up her job, her title, her salary, the ministerial car—all those things—because she believed in women and she stood up for women. She is doing that again today. She is somebody of whom every female in this country and every young girl should be proud. My plea to all the SNP members today is to ignore the whips, follow your conscience and do what is right. Let right be done.
I call Pam Gosal, who will have four minutes, to be followed by Douglas Ross, who will have two minutes.
17:20
I thank Ash Regan for introducing the Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill and acknowledge her passion and all the hard work that she has done on the bill and on the rights of women and girls generally. Introducing a private member’s bill is not an easy process, especially when the member is in Opposition. Having gone through the process myself, I understand the complexities that it entails.
I also thank all the organisations that have supported the development of the bill and that have provided briefings for today’s stage 1 debate. Protecting women and girls is an issue of the utmost importance and, for the past five years, it has been a number 1 priority for me. Prostitution is an issue that primarily affects women. Today, we have heard from members across the chamber that prostitution is violence against women and girls. Prostitution is commercialised and often involves systematic rape, and many of the people who sell sexual acts endure numerous human rights violations when doing so. The bill aims to stop that by criminalising the buyers of sex as opposed to the seller. That approach, which is commonly referred to as the Nordic model, has been approved in many countries, with the evidence suggesting that, in those countries, it has been successful.
The general principles of Ash Regan’s unbuyable bill are in the right place. That is why it is important that the bill is given the proper scrutiny that it needs now and why it should make it to stages 2 and 3 with the proper set of amendments. The minister has made it clear that the SNP Scottish Government does not support the bill due to a so-called lack of time. However, when it suits the SNP, there is time to debate bills with hundreds and hundreds of amendments. We never heard about any issues of time with those bills. For example, with the doomed Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, the SNP forced MSPs to sit in the chamber and vote until the early hours of the morning.
I am still bearing the bruises of the First Minister not backing my Prevention of Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Bill and killing it before the stage 1 report was issued. I know all too well what it means to work hard on a bill for three and a half years, and so does Ash Regan. With regard to bills focusing on issues such as female genital mutilation, non-fatal strangulation and misogyny, the SNP has decided to kick the can down the road. At the same time, part 2 of the Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021 is still not in force.
What all those bills have in common is the aim of protecting women and girls, which the SNP Government does not want to do, whether that is through members’ bills or through its own bills. This is an SNP Government that cannot even define the word “woman”.
It was my intention to speak a bit more about this bill, but—surprise, surprise—there is no time for that. Sex workers are some of the most marginalised women in Scotland and have often been coerced into soliciting their bodies. The general principles of this bill aim to put a halt to that horrible practice. Therefore, I will be supporting the bill at stage 1, and I encourage all MSPs to consider breaking their whip and voting for the bill today.
I call Douglas Ross, for up to two minutes, to be followed by Graham Simpson, for up to two minutes.
17:24
Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer—I am personally grateful to you for calling me, but we are in a terrible state in this Parliament if legislators are restricted to just two minutes to speak on an important piece of legislation.
I cannot go through the formalities, as I would like to do, of praising the member in charge of the bill, who has done incredible work, as I want to get to the root of where we are tonight and at decision time. I just cannot get my head around the Government’s position on the bill. What is being asked for tonight is simply to agree to the bill’s general principles, not to get into the detail of the bill—that comes later. Those principles are agreed to by the Government, and by the party of government, so why is the Government opposing them?
I have thought about it a quite lot, and I think that it might come down to politics, or perhaps Fergus Ewing was right that it comes down to personalities. The Government bears a grudge against anyone who steps out of line, and someone does not step further out of line than by resigning ministerial office. To say to the First Minister at the time, Nicola Sturgeon, that her Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill was a mess and was going to ruin the safety of women and girls, and to resign from Government, has consequences. I think that, sadly, years later, those consequences are going to be felt by some of the most vulnerable women and girls in Scotland, because the Government is still holding a grudge against the member in charge of the bill, who was brave enough to step down at that time.
I have only 30 more seconds. We have heard from SNP members tonight who are going to break the whip. We have heard, I believe, from one SNP member who has spoken up in support of the Government’s position. Where are the rest? If they are happy to vote down the bill tonight simply to say that they do not agree with the general principles, they should tell us why. We have not heard from those members—they have been silent. The Government has taken up more of its speaking time with one individual member—
Rona Mackayrose—
Mr Ross is concluding, Ms Mackay.
The Government has taken up more of its speaking time with one individual member because the whips have, I think, been struggling to get even their cannon fodder to stand up and say why they are supporting the Government. That is not a position that I would like to reflect. I am standing down—
Mr Ross—
I am just about to finish, Deputy Presiding Officer.
I am standing down from the Parliament, but even as a member who is standing down and will not be knocking on doors in the next few weeks asking for support, I am proud of how I will vote tonight: to progress the bill. Any SNP member who is not returning to the Parliament, or who is about to embark on the campaign trail—
Mr Ross, you will need to conclude—thank you.
They should do so knowing—
Mr Ross—
—that their vote tonight—
Mr Ross! Thank you very much.
—will come up on the doorsteps.
I am actually trying to accommodate every member who has pressed their button, but in order to do that, I need co-operation from members in sticking to the time to which they have now agreed.
I call Graham Simpson, for up to two minutes, to be followed by Rachael Hamilton, who will, as we have agreed, have up to one minute.
17:27
I am most grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer.
The Government’s stance today is both bizarre and incoherent. At the start of the debate, the minister seemed to suggest that the Government actually agrees with the aims of the bill. She said that men should not be able to buy sex. However, the Government is arguing that there is not enough time to get the details right. That is irrelevant—the Government says that it will legislate anyway if it is back in Government, but it will not help the member in charge. That is a new and worrying tactic that is being employed to thwart members with sensible ideas.
It is clear to me that the Government is acting in that way because it does not want Ash Regan to have any success, because she had the temerity to leave the SNP. That is not how to do legislation.
If the Government agrees with the intent behind the bill, it should be supporting it now, because we are voting only on the general principles, and those principles are sound. The legislation seeks to confront exploitation, reduce harm and deliver long-overdue protection for some of the most vulnerable people in society. It recognises a simple truth: that prostitution is not a harmless transaction but a system of commercial sexual exploitation that is driven overwhelmingly by male demand. It is not “work”, as Maggie Chapman would have us believe.
By criminalising the purchase of sex, while removing penalties from those who sell it, the bill would shift responsibility to where it belongs: on to the men who—mainly—fuel the trade, not the women who are so often coerced, marginalised or trapped by their circumstances.
Today, the Parliament has an opportunity to reduce harm, challenge misogyny and stand with survivors. Colleagues should reject the Government’s flawed logic and back the general principles of the bill.
I call Rachael Hamilton. You have one minute, please.
17:30
Thank you, Presiding Officer, for the opportunity to speak. I also express my gratitude to Ash Regan.
The Scottish Government has had plenty of time to consider the bill. It was introduced nine months ago, and it has had plenty of sitting days to look at it. It had a choice, but it has chosen not to allow the bill to move forward and not to support women.
The minister used the excuse in her speech that she did not have “official support”. What or who is this official support? Was it a dark force? Was it the First Minister, John Swinney? Was it another party? Key organisations such as Police Scotland, as well as Reem Alsalem, support the bill. Someone must be pulling the strings, and whoever they are, they have a problem with women. They are shutting down women’s voices. No wonder so many women members are leaving this Parliament.
The Greens are also showing their true colours. They did it during the process around gender recognition reform, and they are at it again. Maggie Chapman’s views are offensive to women, especially women who carry trauma from sexual assault. I want to distance myself from those appalling views. On the basis of what Maggie Chapman said, I believe that the Greens consider prostitution the only acceptable way of driving the economy.
Ms Hamilton, you will need to conclude.
The Scottish public support the bill, but the opposition to the bill on the part of the SNP and the Greens sets a dangerous precedent. Tonight, we should come together, support women and back the bill.
We will now move to closing speeches. I call on Maggie Chapman to close on behalf of the Scottish Greens. You have up to six minutes, please.
17:31
In my closing contribution, I want to thank members of the Criminal Justice Committee, clerks and SPICe researchers for their careful work during stage 1 of the bill. I appreciate their efforts to hear from a wide range of witnesses—those who share my view on the bill as well as those who strongly and sincerely support the legislation. To those witnesses I say: I am very grateful to you for sharing your sometimes painful and harrowing stories, for speaking candidly of your experiences and for making your voices heard.
I want to address some of the points that were raised this afternoon. I will start with the apparent lack of evidence that the Nordic model does not cause harm. Norway criminalised clients in 2009. Amnesty International’s 2016 research found that sex workers are still criminalised, including for working together for safety, and they face forced evictions, investigations, surveillance, prosecutions and increased stigma, with migrant workers in particular being targeted. In 2022, research found that Nordic model legislation was a
“smokescreen for … punitive and racialised policing”,
where sex workers were targeted for deportations and evictions.
In France, which criminalised clients in 2016, Médecins du Monde’s 2018 report found that, since the law was introduced, 63 per cent of sex workers have experienced
“deterioration of their living conditions”,
more isolation and greater stress; 42 per cent are more exposed to violence, including sexual violence, theft and armed robbery; and 38 per cent have found it increasingly hard to demand use of condoms. That sounds like pretty clear evidence to me.
I will turn to the matter of enforcement. When we create new crimes, we must be sure that they are not only justifiable but workable. Evidence that was presented to the committee calls that into question. Although I accept that Police Scotland supports the bill, Detective Superintendent Bertram’s evidence to the committee showed that the police are not yet clear on how they would be able to tell if a crime had taken place. He raised the issue of capacity, as he reported that Police Scotland struggles to respond to all reports of brothel keeping, never mind an entirely new offence.
The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said that it can
“foresee difficulty in proving the accused’s intention in circumstances where the offence takes place ‘off street’ and where there is no admission. In such cases, whilst COPFS would not wish to add to the trauma experienced by those exploited by prostitution, their evidence may be required to prove the accused’s intention.”
That echoes sex workers’ concerns that they will inevitably be dragged into investigations in order for the purchase offence to be proven. Ash Regan wants us to introduce a crime that the police and our prosecution service do not know how they will investigate or prosecute.
I will move on to other parts of the bill. It is clear that Greens do not support the primary purpose of the bill, but there are parts that, guided by sex workers, we would support. Greens would welcome, for example, the abolition of the offence of solicitation. As National Ugly Mugs has said,
“Repeal would reduce stigma and criminalisation, improve access to justice, and help to build trust between sex workers and Police Scotland.”
It follows that we should quash any historical offences. We know from evidence given by Scotland for Decrim that
“having a criminal record with prostitution-related convictions and/or a police warning makes it much more difficult for people to leave sex work. Employers are likely to rescind offers of employment, or the worker can be barred from certain forms of employment if they have to undergo a Disclosure Scotland check.”
With 10,459 people having been convicted under the soliciting offence since 1982, that would be a major piece of work, but it would be important work to undo a major injustice.
However, we cannot support the main aim of the bill. I cannot support a proposal that people with lived experience—that is, the people with an interest in the proposed legislation—have told us will make them more vulnerable, put them at risk of further harm and create additional stigma. I hosted an event with Scotland for Decrim in Parliament last year, where sex workers were clear that the bill would make them more isolated, more stigmatised and more at risk. It would push already marginalised people further into the shadows. It would empower traffickers and abusers, who would be able to capitalise on those who are forced underground. It would make sex workers who need help less likely and less able to seek help and support.
Criminalisation is not a gift of protection. It is a threat to the rights of working people. Scotland for Decrim makes the case for safety, not criminalisation, and for rights, not rescue.
I will close with the words of a sex worker who is currently working in Scotland:
“As someone who does sex work in Scotland, I find the Prostitution Bill deeply offensive. In 2024, it is standard procedure to give the people you are legislating ... a voice. It is ... patronising ... It is based on sensationalist stereotypes of sex work. Sex workers in Scotland have been organising for worker rights for years. We are well informed: The Nordic model is harmful to workers. We have clear demands: full decriminalisation. We are resilient and organised people. Not powerless victims as we are portrayed in this proposal.”
I call on Katy Clark to close for Scottish Labour. Up to six minutes, please.
17:37
I am pleased to close the debate on behalf of Scottish Labour.
Ash Regan has spoken about a number of attempts to get legislation on this issue through Parliament. Given the Scottish Government’s previous commitments, it is disappointing that it has not brought forward its own such legislation in this session or engaged meaningfully with the member’s bill. I agree with Fergus Ewing that this Parliament needs to show courage.
We all know that prostitution involves abuse and violence. Michelle Thomson spoke about that in graphic detail and about the importance of evidence that comes from lived experience. We also know that most buyers of sex are men, most sellers of sex are women, and that, in Scots law, the women are criminalised and the men’s behaviour is deemed lawful. We also know that there is a global, multibillion-pound sex trade that profits from the exploitation of some of the most vulnerable in society, and that it is closely connected with human trafficking and organised crime.
One study found that, in the United Kingdom, around two thirds of those involved in prostitution and sex work had been assaulted by clients. As Pauline McNeill said, survivors of prostitution have described experiencing long-term trauma, hypervigilance and symptoms consistent with complex PTSD. In 2015, potential victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation composed a third of all referrals to the national referral mechanism, the UK’s support system for victims of modern slavery. The status quo is unacceptable.
That is why we welcome Ash Regan having introduced the bill and thank her for her considerable work on it. We also appreciate that there is a lack of support for members taking forward bills of this nature.
We consider that it is a good use of the Parliament’s time to consider the legal framework in Scots law. We appreciate that the debate is polarised, with strong views on different sides, and we have listened carefully to the arguments.
We note the lack of men who have been involved in giving evidence to the committee, and the obvious lack of direct lobbying from those who profit from this highly lucrative sector. It seems that those who profit from the sex trade did not think that it was a good use of their time to attempt to influence the evidence that was given to us directly. We are also aware that the debate is happening after the release of another tranche of the Epstein files. It is clear from the evidence that the committee received that men from all walks of life buy sex.
We are very aware that the bill contains four measures and that section 1 tends to dominate the debate. Section 1 proposes the criminalisation of the purchase of sex, but there are three other measures in the bill, on the legalisation of soliciting, the quashing of convictions for soliciting and the creation of a legal right to support to exit prostitution. We believe that all four need proper consideration.
There has been legislative change in many other countries in recent decades, with the so-called Nordic model being introduced in some countries and decriminalisation being introduced in others. We appreciate that the evidence is highly contested, but there is evidence that the Nordic model has had the effect of reducing the size of the market—the number of men buying sex—and reducing human trafficking, and that, in countries where there has been decriminalisation, the size of the market has increased.
There is some evidence that the approach results in fewer men buying sex. As Ash Regan pointed out, in Sweden, in 2008, 8 per cent of men reported paying for sexual services, compared with 13 per cent before the legislation was brought in there. We accept that there is a great deal of dispute about the evidence, but we are also clear that many survivors in Scotland are saying clearly to us that they believe that the framework in the bill needs consideration. The Parliament also needs to consider the wider impact of the status quo on society as a whole—on girls and women, and on boys and men. That point was made to me by one of the survivors of the sex trade.
We have looked at the bill in detail and believe that there is a need to amend each of the four measures in it. We have proposals regarding how the bill could be amended, and I know that Ash Regan intends to lodge amendments. We believe that the bill can be amended but, most of all, we believe that the debate is too important for the Scottish Parliament to curtail scrutiny of the bill that is before us. Therefore, we will support the general principles of the bill when it comes to a division.
17:43
I thank Ash Regan for her courage, and I thank her incredible team. I also thank the survivors of prostitution who shared their harrowing stories with MSPs. Today, we vote as a Parliament for the principles of this bill to put an end to state-sanctioned torture of women and girls. The bill responds to evidence of serious harm—evidence from women whose lives have been shaped by exploitation and violence.
I speak today as someone whose views on the issue have changed. When I lived in the Netherlands shortly after prostitution was legalised there, I accepted the argument that regulation would improve safety and reduce abuse. Brothels were licensed and standards enforced to protect those selling sex. However, over time, I saw the horrific outcomes as they became apparent. Sex tourism increased, more women were being violated, organised crime became entrenched and human trafficking got worse.
Today, in my own region, there are pop-up brothels in towns, women are trafficked and there are alarming indicators of exploitation. We know that there are links between prostitution, grooming gangs and serious organised crime. In 2025, a Romanian gang was convicted in Dundee for trafficking, rape and sexual abuse connected to prostitution—those are not isolated incidents. As we have heard today, the central issue is demand. As Pam Gosal outlined, prostitution exists because men are able to buy sex, and because women and girls are raped and abused. As long as that demand is left unchallenged, exploitation and harm will continue. The bill seeks to address that reality directly by shifting responsibility away from the abused to the abusers—those who create the demand and those who profit from it.
Voices have been raised about prostitution being driven underground, yet that is not borne out by evidence from countries such as Sweden. Traffickers and pimps depend on visibility and access. Their profits rely on men being able to purchase and abuse women easily. Reducing demand reduces the scale of harm and exploitation.
Ash Regan pointed out that sexual exploitation exists because those with the power choose not to act. Liam Kerr and Pam Gosal challenged the argument that was laid out that the Parliament does not have the time to discuss the issue. Liam Kerr and Pam Gosal gave example after example of when time was made available at the beginning of the day or at the end. I am not allowed to say that the Scottish Government was lying, but it was a misrepresentation of the truth.
I thank Ruth Maguire for her intervention on Maggie Chapman, because we were cringing at her speech. My colleague said that it was just offensive, but we cringed when we listened to Maggie Chapman eulogise sex work. Ruth Maguire asked whether, if it is the case that sex work is work, we should set up work experience. She showed how ridiculous Maggie Chapman was being.
Rona Mackay tried to intervene several times, and I say to her: violence from prostitution is not a myth.
Finlay Carson (Galloway and West Dumfries) (Con) rose—
I am afraid that I will not take an intervention from my colleague.
I thank Rhoda Grant, because she made us pause for a moment. She asked the question: if this was your mother, sister or daughter, how would you feel? As my colleague Stephen Kerr said, is this a country we want to bring up our daughters and granddaughters in?
The SNP has been in power for two decades. Fergus Ewing said today that it has become a nest of fearties, and I agree with that. The Government’s argument has been destroyed today. The SNP Government condemns violence against women and girls, yet prostitution is a form of violence that it has never tackled in legislation.
The bill would reduce demand, disrupt organised crime and, crucially, provide a framework of better support for those who want to exit prostitution. It is supported by a long list of organisations, including the Crown Office, Police Scotland and Scottish Women’s Aid.
You need to conclude.
At its core, the bill is about the protection of vulnerable women and girls and reducing organised crime, including grooming and human trafficking. Let right be done today. I say to the SNP members who are just sitting there looking at me: do not be cannon fodder for your whips.
Ms White, you need to conclude.
A vote for this bill at stage 1—
Ms White, you need to conclude.
—is a vote to support the general principle of the bill.
We are well over our time, and we must make some progress.
17:49
I share the passion and the drive that have been clearly evident from all of today’s contributions. This is self-evidently a complex and sensitive issue that needs to be addressed in a way that everyone can agree on, particularly women who are involved in prostitution. Ms Regan and other members have spoken in defence of the bill, but we cannot ignore the voices of women involved in prostitution who have said that they will be at risk of violence and harm if it is passed.
Will the minister take an intervention?
I am going to try to make some progress.
We have about 22 sitting days left in this parliamentary session. Do members really believe that there is enough time to sufficiently address that concern and the many other flaws that have been highlighted in the bill? I am clear that we cannot dismiss the comments from women involved in prostitution who are “terrified” of the proposals. That should make us all pause.
Ahead of today’s debate, members received many briefings that highlight the risks, but I appreciate that opinion is divided on the issue.
Will the minister take an intervention?
I am not taking interventions at this stage, as I have a lot to get through.
For example, one briefing said that the bill would
“make life more dangerous and difficult for those selling sex, by driving the industry underground”.
In the open letter to MSPs that I mentioned—well, I was going to mention it in my opening speech, but I did not get the chance—the 126 signatories said:
“for us this means our working conditions worsening, and the rate of violence we experience rising. We ask that you vote against the bill.”
The logic of those on the other side of the argument seems to be that, if we decriminalise similar crimes—if we decriminalise, say, rapists or domestic abusers—that will somehow make women safer. Surely we can understand that that is not the case and that we need to hold these men to account to reduce the level of violence.
That has not been our argument whatsoever.
I support the committee’s recommendation to establish an independent commission on the issue, because, importantly, that will allow for further engagement with women who are currently involved in selling sex and offer an opportunity to hear from those with technical experience on how best to respond to online exploitation, specifically in relation to the support that women need. There is currently no detail in the bill on that and, if it were to progress, we would have no time to consult or engage with women in prostitution at the moment.
Further work is also clearly needed to ensure that future legislation is deliverable for the police. I am sure that many members will be aware of the concerns that Police Scotland raised yesterday about operational costs that could arise as a result of the bill. In relation to what Fergus Ewing said regarding yesterday’s announcement from Police Scotland, I highlight that that was the first time that I had seen those figures, but I am told that that was in response to a question that Ms Dowey from the Conservatives asked in the committee’s meeting on 5 November last year.
We have also heard about the issues with the bill as drafted relating to the definition of the criminal aspect in the bill and to enforcement. For example, in its briefing to MSPs, the Law Society of Scotland, which does not take a position on any of the bill’s policy intentions, states that it envisages that
“the behaviours excluded from the scope of the proposed offence may lead to confusion”,
and it agrees with the committee’s stage 1 recommendation that any new proposed offence should
“have a clear definition consistent with current legislation and the policy intentions of the Bill.”
I will reflect on some of the contributions from members. I appreciate that the issue is very emotive, but I feel that some members have been very disingenuous in relation to some of the facts that they have portrayed. Liam Kerr, you referred to the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill as one of the reasons for having time for all these amendments—
Always speak through the chair, please.
That bill was introduced in June 2023, but it was late last year when it was finally passed, so that process took more than two years. There are also more than a dozen bills to get through in the next 22 sitting days.
Pauline McNeill, I will address some of the things that you highlighted.
Always speak through the chair, please.
Sorry, Presiding Officer.
You mentioned the evolving landscape—
Always speak through the chair, please.
The member mentioned the evolving digital landscape with women being filmed, which was on the news yesterday. That reiterates that we need the expertise to feed that into the discussions on how we move forward with the bill.
I know that Katy Clark and Pauline McNeill asked why this legislation was not in the programme for government. I have to clarify that there was a commitment in the 2020-21 programme for government to consult on challenging men’s demand for prostitution. That led the Government to develop a model for Scotland that effectively tackles and challenges men’s demand for prostitution. We published that strategic approach back in 2024. The Government is crystal clear that that work will continue—
Minister, please resume your seat for a second. I have a point of order from Pauline McNeill.
I apologise for raising a point of order during a speech—I would never do that, but the minister started a sentence by saying that she would name the members who have been disingenuous. I do not know whether she meant me, but I think that I am owed an apology because what I said was what I believe. I will not stand here and be called disingenuous by the minister. I thought that we shared some common ground on the fact that the wider harm to women is something that we all agree about. Therefore, can I have an apology, please?
I thank Ms McNeill for her point of order. That is indeed a point of order. Under our standing orders, all members, including ministers, are required to treat every other member with courtesy and respect. I hope that the minister has noted that point.
I have noted that. I was addressing some of the comments from other members, not all comments. I do apologise. It was not meant for that member.
In my opening speech, I was going to mention operation begonia and a Crimestoppers campaign on commercial sexual exploitation that will be launched on 23 February. We have also funded the development of a resource to support police training that will be introduced this year. During its committee evidence, Police Scotland highlighted the importance of local support and how it will go hand in hand with its work. The new resource will build on the work that we have been undertaking with Police Scotland to strengthen the connections between police and local support services.
Next month, as part of our wider work to improve support, we will also launch an employability and training guide for women who are looking to exit prostitution. As I said earlier, there is £400,000 in our draft budget to provide support in this area, with a further £65,000 being provided to the women’s support project to support women exiting prostitution.
I commend Ash Regan for ensuring that the Parliament has recognised the need to change the legislation around prostitution and the majority agrees with the fundamental principle of criminalising the purchase of sex. However, we have also heard about significant concerns with the bill that would take time to address. Time is not available in this parliamentary session.
Will the minister take an intervention?
The minister is concluding.
We have heard the consensus, and this is an issue that needs to be addressed in the next parliamentary session. A commission that can examine and consider the many issues that have been aired today and act quickly in the next session is the way forward ahead of legislation that the Parliament can scrutinise and amend, knowing that it has the time and, importantly, that the proposals have been developed with those who are involved in prostitution. Women have clearly stated that, as drafted, the bill would put them at an increased risk of violence. I do not think that the bill can be amended sufficiently in six short weeks to allay those concerns and the other flaws in the bill.
Six weeks! Did the minister not hear a word that has been said?
Members, the minister needs to conclude.
I cannot and will not dismiss that clear concern for women’s safety that the committee has heard, which MSPs have reflected on today and which several stakeholders have outlined in their briefings. That concern needs to be at the forefront of our minds today, which is why the Scottish Government cannot support the bill stage 1.
I now call Ash Regan to wind up the debate. You have up to eight minutes, please.
17:58
It has been an interesting afternoon. I reiterate my point that the Parliament is at its best when we are wrestling with such debates. However, it is very clear to me that the approach that I outlined in my bill has won the argument decisively in the chamber this afternoon. There have been excellent speeches from Michelle Thomson, Ruth Maguire, Fergus Ewing and Stephen Kerr. However, we have not heard from the buyers.
The bill criminalises the purchase of sexual access, yet, throughout the committee’s scrutiny and throughout its evidence, the people whose behaviour would be criminalised are very conspicuous by their absence. There were no sex buyers—no men coming in front of the committee to account for or justify why they believe that their power entitles them to purchase access to another human being’s body. That matters because, when concerns are raised about safety, as they have been again today, we are told again and again that criminalising men will make women less safe, sellers will screen more carefully and women will be forced to vet in order to survive. Let us be honest: screening is not a safety measure; it is an attempt at a survival strategy that is used by women to try and navigate all the risks that are stacked against them—risks that are created by male entitlement, power and demand. It does not offer protection from violence.
I am sorry, minister, but if you had taken the time—
Always speak through the chair.
If she had taken time to listen to survivors, the minister might have heard people explaining that point.
There is a question here that is never answered.
Will the member take an intervention?
I will not.
If men are refused by those at the very top who are able to do some kind of vetting, where do those men go next? I will tell members where they go: they just go down the chain, to women who are poorer, more desperate and more vulnerable. That is a choice, but too many people in prostitution do not have a choice. They do not have agency, and they do not have an ability to plead.
We are told that sex buyers are ordinary men, and I believe that they are. They are men who want privacy. The evidence—academic, operational and survivor led—tells us a different story, however. The Lord Advocate put this in her written evidence to the committee. She said that
“women involved in prostitution are disproportionately likely to be—”
On a point of order, Presiding Officer.
Could you please resume your seat, Ms Regan? We have a point of order from Tess White.
Presiding Officer, the rules say that MSPs need to show respect to other MSPs. There is a conversation going on beside me, involving a cabinet secretary and a minister, while I am trying to listen to Ash Regan’s closing speech. I think that that is disrespectful.
Thank you, Ms White. I have noted your contribution. Obviously, every member would wish to extend courtesy and respect to all other members, and we should all be paying attention to the member who has the floor.
The Lord Advocate said that
“women involved in prostitution are disproportionately likely to be victims of serious … offences,”
but the men
“who purchase sex, whether on or off the street, are statistically more likely to perpetrate domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women and girls.”
She went on to say that
“It is therefore essential that the issue is considered within the broader context of public interest and societal harm.”
That is not ideology; that is Scotland’s chief legal officer, giving her evidence, having had a long career as a sexual crimes prosecutor. The academic literature aligns with that. Across countries, and for decades, men who buy sexual access score higher on sexual entitlement, acceptance of coercion, hostility towards women and rape myth acceptance, which is one of the strongest predictors of sexual aggression.
What does that look like in their own words? One buyer describes meeting a woman who was visibly unwell and disoriented. He said, “She looked like she was under the effect of chemicals. She was disorientated when I tried to talk to her, but I decided to give her a go anyway.” Another writes: “It truly is like living in a fantasy world, getting to pick from a range of girls to suck my cock and be fucked by me—all my teenage fantasies right there.” We hear again and again the language of ownership, the language of consumption and the language of contempt.
Another punter said: “If you want the best head, a junkie will do it best. I saw her when she was homeless. She wore that bikini for weeks on end, and I would fuck her unshaven, unkempt, unshowered. I’d do it again if I had the chance. She is an object placed there for men like us to use.” When women do not perform enthusiasm, they are punished, financially and verbally. Another review says: “Avoid. Let her learn the hard way that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” This is the mentality of the men that members are being asked to protect by not backing my bill.
Evidence suggests that about 11 per cent of men have bought sex. That figure is out of date, however—I think that it is higher now. Most of them are in relationships and are economically stable. Many hold positions of authority and power—headteachers, senior professionals, princes and politicians.
Police and prosecutors understand, and they see the pattern repeatedly. They back my bill. Men who are arrested for sexual assault often turn out to be sex buyers. Domestic abuse perpetrators frequently have a history of buying sex. Men who are stopped for kerb crawling already have previous offending against women. Digital evidence shows patterns of purchasing surfacing across different crimes.
Demand for sexual access is not a separate behaviour. It sits as part of the wider continuum of violence against women and girls. That is why the Nordic model is such a game changer, because it does not criminalise the sellers—Maggie Chapman and I have that in common. The model does not pretend to manage the harm; it targets the demand and the entitlement that drives the system.
If we fail to pass the bill, we are not protecting women’s safety; we are protecting men’s violence. We are shielding the minority of men who, in their own words, reveal exactly what they believe women to be for. Let us be clear: hiding sex buyers behind claims of women’s safety is not protection; it is exploitation. The silence that the buyers hide behind is not innocence; it is entitlement enforced by power. The Parliament now has to decide who it stands with: the exploited or the exploiter.
My bill, including the title, is four and a half pages long and has 11 sections. Among all the issues raised at the committee—I have listened carefully to what has been said at stage 1 and have committed to a number of amendments to address those issues—the Government has not articulated one issue to me that I had not already covered in my various conversations with the minister. If it is a matter of money, what price does the Government put on the safety of women and girls? I even presented a Christie commission-based public-value case to the Government, showing that the bill will actually save Scotland money.
The bill would enact a law that is backed by Police Scotland, the Crown Office, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls and the Lord Advocate—a law that has been in force in eight countries for more than 26 years—and it reflects the Government’s own strategy. If this is beyond the capability of the Parliament and 128 MSPs, in the two remaining months of a five-year parliamentary session, the public will ask us what we are doing here.
I got to this stage 1 debate with just my own small team, alongside brave survivors, many of whom are in the public gallery, and a network of women’s rights and child safeguarding campaigners. I thank them. They have done and are doing what women have always done when those in power fail to act on our behalf: organise at kitchen tables between dinner and tea. I have had no support from the Government or privately funded lobby groups. I have not even had the NGBU resource that the public would assume that the public purse funds for all members’ bills. I have had radio silence from the Government on technical issues that are within its control and even on requests from survivors to meet the Government, which is shameful. I am sorry, Presiding Officer, but that is shameful.
I have been a Government minister for four years and a back bencher in the Parliament for five years. Colleagues, I have to tell you that I have never been more ashamed of the lack of courage that is being displayed in the Parliament—not even to meet survivors of exploitation, which is probably happening metres from this building, let alone to stand up and be counted on a matter that is life or death. This is not about greyhound tracks that are not even operational; this is about life or death for vulnerable women and girls—but, you know, the Parliament is too busy.
The state has a duty to protect women and girls from sexual exploitation by abusive, dangerous men. If it does not act, I am afraid that all members will be complicit in that harm.
As I look around the chamber this evening, I see some MSPs sitting here who know that they should register an interest, but I am sure that they will not, for varying reasons. The vote on the bill is not a conscience vote, but I believe that it should be, as such votes have been for other members’ bills. I also see former colleagues and friends on the benches who I know back the bill and support the principle. I wonder whether they will have the courage to say so with their votes—I hope that they will.
Millicent Fawcett famously said, “Courage calls to courage”. The most courageous people in the Parliament today are the survivors of prostitution. They have called to us all. They have bared their deepest trauma and shame in the hope that we will listen to them and in the hope that we will save the next wee girls who are targeted to have their bodies accessed by entitled, abusive sex buyers. Will you finally heed their call to courage? Will you listen to and act for them? MSPs who hide behind the polished lies that are directly out of the sex trade handbook should be ashamed, frankly.
I want to address the point of harm. The only thing that would be harmed by my bill is the sex trade, and there is no excuse not to apply critical thinking and research to this debate, as other legislatures, even in the UK, have done and have told us about. They are watching this Parliament today.
Ms Regan, you will need to conclude.
What rational person thinks that the vulnerable are kept safe by shielding the men who have queued around the block to buy access to these wee girls’ bodies and then rape them like takeaway meals on the vile Punternet community sites?
There are sliding-door moments in politics, and today is one of those sliding-door moments. I gave survivors, who have been ignored for generations, a voice in their national Parliament. Now, members, it is over to you. What are you going to do?
Are you going to listen, are you going to act, or are you going to stand for shielding sex buyers and tolerating the collateral damage that they inflict? If that is for you, that will have to be between you and your conscience.
Survivors do not want your praise.
Ms Regan, please complete your speech.
They do not want your sympathy; they just need your vote. Those who vote against the bill today will find that it will become a stain on their voting record.
Ms Regan, we need to have your conclusion now.
I will conclude, Presiding Officer.
For all the survivors of prostitution here, in Scotland and across the world, I commend the motion in my name.
That concludes the debate on the Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill at stage1. There will be a short pause before we move on to the next item of business.